The binding appears to be solid and allows me to open the book and lay it flat on the table. The conversion of the color illustrations to black and white, especially the chapter illustrations have turned out well. My only complaint would be that, due to the lack of full bleed, the background shading (a very light gray pattern from viewing the pdf preview) of the pages is very obvious. I think that it would have been preferable to remove this for the black and white printings. This pattern turns into a darker half-tone (see http://en.wikip-edia.org/wiki/Halftone) background which, in conjunction with the white border due to the lack of full bleed, is very obvious to the reader (although the first page of every chapter has a more distinct pattern that turns out better). Also there are a small number of the pages (e.g. example of play page 303) that must have used a lighter text color - this translates into text with a washed out look that is a little harder to read with the background.

It is a very complete game, containing everything you'd need to play Vampire: The Masquerade. It includes many disciplines, bloodlines, paths of enlightenment, thaumaturgy paths/rituals etc that originally appeared in supplements for earlier editions. The breadth of material contained within the covers is awe-inspiring, especially when compared to the earlier core rule books of the 1st, 2nd and revised editions. If you were wanting to start playing Vampire: The Masquerade then I would recommend obtaining a copy of the 20th Anniversary Edition rather than scouring the internet and 2nd hand bookshops for an earlier edition, especially because some improvements to the rules were made when putting this edition together.

This book inspired me to start looking at the "classic" world of darkness games again. I look forward to picking up the 20th Anniversary edition of Werewolf: The Apocalypse (in development at the time of writing this review) and even ordered a print-on-demand copy of Changeling: The Dreaming 2nd Edition to tide me over until White Wolf/CCP get around to its 20th Anniversary Edition. For old Masquerade fans I heartily recommend obtaining a copy of Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition. To those who never have played and are interested, this is the book to get.